The Penguins are working hard to turn the younger and the youngest generations into hockey fans, and its working. It’s not just about Western Pennsylvania players turning up in the NHL at an outrageous rate -- while Pittsburgh rarely produces an NBA player. It’s a generational thing. Where once fathers passed on to their sons a love of football and baseball and maybe basketball, now dads are talking hockey to their kids.

And something ridiculously impressive that I didn't know about:

Their TV ratings for this season are up close to 30 percent over last year, at which time they had the best local ratings of all U.S teams in the NHL and the NBA.

Translation - the local ratings for Penguins games are better than the local ratings for the Knicks, Bulls, Celtics, Heat, or Lakers.

Id love to see a quasi scientific poll of all 12-18 year olds in Pittsburgh asking who they like best. If the Penguins won it wouldn't surprise me.

I think one of the contributing factors to the slow transformation is the success of the Steelers. Now that could see a bit of a slide, I imagine more fans will flock to the Pens simply because people like to root for a winner.

I love how he found a way to fit the Pirates in this conversation. Of coarse Pirates will sell tickets when you throw free gifts and fireworks every weekend. pens are guilty of thois as well in the past but at least Pens are producing results which were promised by ownership.

Pens ratings are great sure, but it's not comparable to larger cities. A higher percentage of people in Pgh watch the pens, and that is nice but take out number of tvs with full cable packages, ethnic areas with zero hockey interest and so forth.

Not bashing the pens but they will not catch the steelers anytime soon and popularity will drop significantly eventually

No doubt the Pens have made great strides in increasing the fan base, but it is not fair to compare the NHL to the NFL in general. With only 16 regular season games, almost every NFL game is more meaningful. The NFL has the national TV contracts, better coverage on ESPN and other networks, players doing endorsements, etc. Think about it - people in Pittsburgh will watch an NFL game between just about any 2 teams when the Steelers are not playing, but most Pens fans will not sit through a full NHL game unless the Pens are playing. Again, the Pens are doing well for a small market team, but in the US it is unlikely that ANY hockey team will be more popular than the NFL team in that city.

Their TV ratings for this season are up close to 30 percent over last year, at which time they had the best local ratings of all U.S teams in the NHL and the NBA.

Translation - the local ratings for Penguins games are better than the local ratings for the Knicks, Bulls, Celtics, Heat, or Lakers.

Id love to see a quasi scientific poll of all 12-18 year olds in Pittsburgh asking who they like best. If the Penguins won it wouldn't surprise me.

The Pens are more popular among 18-29 so I'd be willing to bet that they are even more popular with the 12-18 crowd. The Steelers are much more popular with the older age groups and there are a lot of old people in Allegheny county

The Pens have better ratings than any NHL, NBA, or MLB team. Not really surprising that they get better ratings than the Bulls or Celtics considering that the Bruins and Hawks get better ratings than the NBA teams in those markets.

I always felt the steelers primed the pens fans on how to be "a fan". We grew up so die hard steeler fans we don't know any other way to be "a fan" than like we are for the Steelers.

Pens were smart, building up youth hockey in the lemieux era and jagr and Crasy era, will bring these young hockey fans into adult hood and they will be the ones buyign the season tickets.

Hockey always will seem to draw more bandwagon fans than football in this town. More die hard football fans than hockey fans. Its funny how some of my friends swear off hockey since they still can't understand icing. Also i find it funny how some girls can't understand the rules but love hockey for some reason.

AlexPKeaton wrote:I have sworn off the nfl. Haven't watched it in years. Can't stand the commercialism of the coverage and around the sport. Also the thug culture and unlikeable players are a big turn off.

The steelers, themselves, are starting to have a lot more unlikeable players

no name wrote:I always felt the steelers primed the pens fans on how to be "a fan". We grew up so die hard steeler fans we don't know any other way to be "a fan" than like we are for the Steelers.

Pens were smart, building up youth hockey in the lemieux era and jagr and Crasy era, will bring these young hockey fans into adult hood and they will be the ones buyign the season tickets.

Hockey always will seem to draw more bandwagon fans than football in this town. More die hard football fans than hockey fans. Its funny how some of my friends swear off hockey since they still can't understand icing. Also i find it funny how some girls can't understand the rules but love hockey for some reason.

Puck Bunnies to put a nice way has always been the major benefit to the sport. Most girls always chase the puck...

So looking at the big ones (Facebook and Twitter) it's pretty close overall. But, I think the instagram site may actually be closer to the 12-18 range that you are looking for, since that's where the kids are these days. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57508430-93/how-instagram-became-the-social-network-for-tweens/. I'm not sure any of the details on when the pages became active or how much either team pushes those pages, so its hard to make a definite comparison, but it is lopsided for the steelers.

It'll be interesting to see the numbers if the Pens win another cup before the Steelers get themselves back into a championship caliber team. I can't see the Steelers having more than 1 chance at a superbowl with Big Ben at QB, and I don't see that chance happening in the next couple years either.

So looking at the big ones (Facebook and Twitter) it's pretty close overall. But, I think the instagram site may actually be closer to the 12-18 range that you are looking for, since that's where the kids are these days. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57508430-93/how-instagram-became-the-social-network-for-tweens/. I'm not sure any of the details on when the pages became active or how much either team pushes those pages, so its hard to make a definite comparison, but it is lopsided for the steelers.

The Steelers and the NFL are more of a national brand so it is unfair to compare the two using social media. It would be better to see how these numbers breakdown specifically in the Pittsburgh area. And it is completely unfair to compare the instagram numbers. The Steelers have been on Instagram since January of 2012, the Penguins just created an Instagram account in December so of course the Steelers are going to have a lot more Instagram followers.

The steelers are coming off a bad year, and look even worse going in to next year. They also just watched their biggest rival win a championship while they watched the playoffs from home. Football is in the off season. Hockey season is in full swing, the pens are in first place, and have two of the best, most marketable players in the game. They have won 7 games in a row

There is one aspect of this discussion that has not been brought up: Race.

Black athletes more or less dominate football, so naturally many blacks are intensely interested in pro football and the Steelers. So are many whites too, of course. But, when it comes to hockey, it is largely ignored by blacks, who make up something like 9% of the regional population.

How would the popularity between the two teams stack up among whites only? It would be closer obviously.

Do the Pens need to do a better job of marketing their brand to blacks, such as by acquiring a black player who can actually play (i.e., not an enforcer like Georges Laraque who wouldn’t enforce anyway)?

Bathgate wrote:There is one aspect of this discussion that has not been brought up: Race.

Black athletes more or less dominate football, so naturally many blacks are intensely interested in pro football and the Steelers. So are many whites too, of course. But, when it comes to hockey, it is largely ignored by blacks, who make up something like 9% of the regional population.

How would the popularity between the two teams stack up among whites only? It would be closer obviously.

Do the Pens need to do a better job of marketing their brand to blacks, such as by acquiring a black player who can actually play (i.e., not an enforcer like Georges Laraque who wouldn’t enforce anyway)?

I think the bigger issue is income, not necessarily race.

As for introducing more black players to the team, the Thrashers tried it and they moved to Winnipeg.